Madam, – My friend Michael McKenna was buried on St Patrick’s Day. He was 93.
You might say “well he had a long life”, if you were unaware that a cowardly assault shortened it. Michael valued his independence so he lived alone in the house that his forefathers lived in, peacefully, for the past 200 years. His family and good neighbours (only a few fields away) visited him every day. On the afternoon of the assault, Michael was at the front door of his mountain home. A car with the two smiling men came up the lane. Ninety-three-year-old Michael McKenna loved visitors.
He didn’t press his panic button. Why would he? They were smiling. The attackers manhandled Michael, ransacked his house, escaped with whatever few euro he possessed. He was bruised, and recovered physically, but not mentally.
This is happening daily to Michael McKennas throughout the country.
A few months later, this previously happy independent man died in the arms of his family, pleading, “Please keep the robbers away from me”.
Do we as a society really care? Michael McKenna was only “pushed around a bit” and a few euro stolen. – Yours, etc,